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iTWire Technology Feature - Virtualisation
Technology news and Jobs 
The Linux distillery A bright open source future
The Linux distillery A bright open source future | A bright open source future |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Thursday, 10 April 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 SMACK stands for Simplified Mandatory Access Control and provides a security framework. Admittedly, the most used MAC solution in Linux is the very well-known SELinux and SMACK is less powerful. However, it is simpler to use and configure.Latencytop on the other hand is largely unparalled. Like the other well-known tool that its name plays on – top, which shows CPU usage – latencytop lets you know what’s happening on your system right now. As the name indicates, it handles latency. All those little problems – slow servers, skipping audio, jerking video – can be identified using latencytop. Specifically, these jitters are mostly caused by an application wanting to run and execute code but yet a needed resource is not available (so the scheduler blocks the process.) With latencytop you can see at both a system and process level what’s happening, which process is suffering and what’s causing the delays. This is a great tool for users, system admins and developers alike. There’s a whole heap more, of course – extra drivers, better 64-bit support, extensions to the ACPI thermal regulation and other items. Also out this month is Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron. This has been deemed by Ubuntu as a Long Term Support (LTS) release, meaning the company commits to providing support for three years on the desktop and five years on server platforms. So, Ubuntu 8.04 isn’t going to go away anytime soon, it’s a major release. As a natural consequence Ubuntu have focused a lot less on new and flashy stuff but more on stability and reliability and robustness. People who found the previous Ubuntu release, Gutsy Gibbon, a disappointing experience are well encouraged to give Hardy Heron a spin and see how things have changed. In particular, there will be a raft of new device drivers and thus less risk of incompatible hardware problems. As always, Ubuntu CDs and DVDs will be a Live CD release meaning a live Ubuntu session can be booted right off the disk. Adding to that, 8.04 includes the Wubi installer which runs under Microsoft Windows and lets Ubuntu be installed from within Windows without any need to reboot or fiddle around with partitions. There will be a face lift coming, with the three major elements driving the user interface all being overhauled. This includes the kernel itself, and also the GNOME desktop environment and Xorg graphics handler. Each of these has been enhanced and upgraded since the previous Ubuntu release. Xorg has been particularly improved and no longer needs any manual editing of config files providing both a better automated configuration as well as a new feature called “Bullet Proof X” which will put up a graphical safe mode should anything go wrong within X-Windows. What’s more? Please read on. CONTINUED |
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